Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Monsters, mutants, misfits, and other post apocalyptic horrors of 'Merica are coming straight at you in the latest Crawling Under A Broken Moon. This is one for the dungeon master to grab, basically this is a thirty two page monster manual style book for the Crawling Under A Broken moon setting but there's a bit more too it then simply another post apocalyptic monster manual. Basically each individual monster has both adventure hooks and a random chart of factors to throw the party of mutant adventurers into a tail spin. This includes everything from the flaming feces of the Jack-O-rang-utan to the diabolical twistedness of the Necrocornicon. This is the wastelands of 'Merica where the rage of He Man like muscle bound heroes meets the road rage of death bot harvesters, giant robots, mutants and horrors of the wasteland. Every issue of CUABM has built upon one another for a complete Dungeon Crawl Classics post apocalyptic adventure kit. As we'll see in a moment how this works out. Grab It Right Over HERE There are a few of the monsters in this issue of Crawling that are extremely powerful and represent what amounts to an opportunity for a DM to take. Many of the mutant menaces in here could with little issue actually be used as a funnel opportunity for a DM to break in new mutant or wasteland adventurers into the folk of his or her campaigns. For example imagine that a wizard riding on a harvester death bot decides to mow through your campaign village. Pretty much an instant funnel right there. This is also a way of tying together the motives and purposes of a party of adventurers even different types. Keeping adventurers on the same page can be a bit difficult at times in Dungeon Crawl Classics monsters mutant or otherwise offer a prime opportunity for this. Thinking outside of the box is one of the prime ways that a DM can use monsters and these twisted horrors of the wasteland offer a prime opportunity.

Part of the back handed gamer nostalgia echo of Dungeon Crawl Classics conceals a very sly take on adventure design something that Crawling Under A Broken Moon also excels at. Monsters here have lairs, motives, and fit into the mold that CUABM puts forth. Taken as a whole these monsters also can be adventures unto themselves. In point of fact each and everyone of these monsters could be inter spaced between adventures to create mini quests or adventure play encounters thus creating memorable and storied adventure encounters for your games. There's also plenty of fodder here for the creation of other post apocalyptic adventures and one thing that Crawling does as a whole is to stick with the gods and spirits of the wasteland as potential patrons. Over and over we see this sprinkled throughout the crawling product line again and again. There are lots of iconic monsters in this issue as well including Laser Ursines!

Another bit that get's tossed around is the idea of the monster as treasure and adventure hook that dovetails into your campaign's background. A great example of this is the Fruiti- Slush Ooze a cold mutated treat from the depths of the history pages one of the adventure hooks could spawn an entire campaign on its own. "The fruit flavored jerky that can be harvested from corpses of Fruiti-Slush Ooze victims has become a lucrative trade item to a small but wealthy cartel of exotic gastronomes operating out of the Citadel of Scrap. It is said they pay a high price but only if it is fresh." This issue is filled with stuff like this on just about every monster entry. Do I think its worth the price of admission? Yes in spades, the quality of Crawling Under A Broken Moon continues to impress and issue ten is no exception.

About Me

My name is Eric I started gaming with Dungeons & Dragons white box back in 1977 & haven't looked back. I'm a crafter, sewer, sewing machine repair man who also happens to be a Dungeon Master. Thanks for taking the time to read this.